"Have I mentioned how much I don't like this plan?" Han Solo asked as the decades-old Consular-class space cruiser that he was piloting emerged from hyperspace.
"About twenty times today," Princess Leia quickly replied, weary of hearing the smuggler-turned-rebel complain. First it had been about the mission: an undercover rescue mission to recover the survivors of the now destroyed Independence. Then the complaining had moved on to the ship. It wasn't the Falcon, and that had seemed to put Han slightly on edge.
"I can't help it. I got a bad…"
" 'Feeling about this.' We know," Leia interrupted. "Let's just hope that someone got out of that ship with his or her life intact," she added.
"Same here, Princess," Han replied as he saw the Imperial Star Destroyer looming in the background, the backdrop of the planet silhouetting it. Hopefully we will, too, he added.
"Just remember the bluff and we should be fine," Leia reminded him, adjusting the blonde wig on her head.
"I'm not the one fiddling with my disguise," Han replied, lifting the black patch over his eye. Chewbacca roared something about how the humans at least had disguises, and then complained about having to masquerade as a slave again. "I hear you, Chewie," Han replied as he checked the computer readouts in front of him. "But it beats them finding out who we really are."
"Especially with Keyan and Kyle missing," Leia added, referring to the two Jedi that had just recently gone missing. One of them had been among the many other Alliance personnel that had been stationed on the Independence when it had been destroyed. The other had last been seen on Nar Shaddaa, the moon of Nal Hutta that was well known for its smuggler history.
"Yeah, that would thin the Jedi ranks considerably," Han replied. "Not counting the old guys, of course."
They're hailing us, Chewbacca announced, forcing both of the human rebels to snap to attention.
"Get Threepio in here and then put them on," Han replied.
A few seconds later, a very tattered-looking C-3PO walked onto the bridge of the spacecraft. A portion of his once golden paneling had been stripped away, leaving the internal parts showing. What paneling remained was extremely scuffed and dented, barely even capable of reflecting even the brightest light. It had been an "upgrade" that had barely been applied due to the stuffy protocol droids countless complaints. It had taken Leia to promise the droid all new paneling and a software upgrade that would push his six million communication forms known to closer to seven to get him to volunteer.
With the protocol droid in place, Chewbacca leaned forward in his seat and opened up a channel between the two ships.
"Unidentified Corellian vessel," an Imperial officer said as his image appeared on a viewscreen in front of the pilots' chairs, "please identify yourselves and state your purpose in the system."
"Wasn't like this two weeks ago," Han replied, easily slipping into the persona of his disguise.
"No stalling!" the officer reported.
"Fine, if that's the way you want to do this," Han answered, the last few words trailing off. "This is the Consular-class vessel Renasance. We're licensed out of Brentaal IV, registry number…"
Leia watched as Han continued to bluff his way onto the planet, her own concentration fixed on attempting a Force trick. She had learned from Master Vos a skill that would come in extremely handy during this mission; a way to mask one's presence in the Force. It was a pity, she thought as the Imperial officer let them pass, that Keyan had been shipped out before the other Jedi had been brought aboard.
Chewbacca growled something in his native language, a series of barks and growls that Leia hadn't learned to translate. During her time in the Imperial Senate, the Wookiees had been an enslaved species, their Senator Yarua arrested and sent away to a "prison camp." From her experiences with Chewbacca's and Han's retelling of the Wookiee copilot's history, she could easily imagine that the once proud senator had been enslaved along with the rest of his race. With Kashyyyk being represented by a human "protectorate," the use for a junior senator to learn the language of the Wookiees was almost nonexistent
"You're right, Chewie," Han replied before translating the phrase for Leia. "We were certainly lucky to get past that ship."
"Sithspit, they're coming!" Keyan Farlander exclaimed through clenched teeth as he ducked into an alleyway inside of the capital city on the planet. The "they" that he referred to was a squad of Stormtroopers doing one of the many searches for the hidden rebels that had become routine in the past week.
"What are we going to do?" Lynia asked in hushed tones. "We can't let them detain us."
Keyan quickly looked across the alley for anything that could help them get by the Stormtroopers that were closing in on them. Seeing inspiration laying a few meters away, Keyan quickly whispered his plan to Lynia and hoped that his mind tricks were up to par.
"I can't believe that I find you here!" Lynia exclaimed a few seconds later, making sure that the Stormtroopers could hear her. She forcefully shoved Keyan into the wall, the normally well-balanced Jedi going limp as he hit the wall. He hit the ground with a thud, dropping the empty bottle of alcohol that he had quickly grabbed to help with the bluff.
Lynia continued her verbal assault as the Stormtroopers rounded the corner, berating Keyan for running off and spending too much time at cantinas. The Stormtroopers stared at the scene for a while, their helmet-enhanced sense of smell picking up faint traces of alcohol coming from the man sitting in a drunken stupor and speaking in a heavy Agamarian accent.
"What's going on here?" the leader of the Stormtroopers said as he stepped forward.
"He's drunk again!" Lynia exclaimed, lightly kicking Keyan in leg. The scent of alcohol vanished for a second as the seemingly drunken Agamarian held his hurting leg before returning almost two-fold. "And he didn't come home!"
The Stormtroopers watched in amazement as the half-alien mutt continued to berate the human man on the ground, disgust washing over them. How could a human stoop this low?
"This is none of your concern," the Agamarian finally said in a surprisingly calm voice. "You will go about your business."
The lead Stormtrooper paused for a moment, considering everything that had just transpired. "What do you mean it's none of our business?" he finally said. "You're creating a disturbance, and you're intoxicated in public!" The head Stormtrooper took a step towards the two. "You're under arrest."
Keyan's mind screamed as he tried to figure out some type of backup plan as two of the five Stormtroopers moved towards him. Lynia had backed away slightly, still desperately trying to keep their bluff alive. The two Stormtroopers easily picked Keyan up and began to move him out of the alley. Certain that the time was right, he began to fight back.
He quickly placed one of his feet—which had been dragging behind him—in front of one of the Stormtroopers carrying him away, tripping that Imperial soldier and bringing the other down as the three men fell. Keyan heard the sound of an E-11 blaster rifle skittering across the ground and reached towards it with the Force. The blaster rifle easily flew through the air and finally came to rest in his palm. He quickly aimed towards the two Stormtroopers that had remained in front of him and squeezed off two shots in their direction. Each of the shots dropped a trooper. He turned to the one chasing after Lynia and brought that trooper down as well.
A quick, Force-enhanced kick knocked out one of the troops that he had taken down with him, leaving only the one Stormtrooper that he had tripped at the beginning of this short fight. Unarmed, the single Stormtrooper raised his hands in surrender, only to be dropped a few seconds later by a stun shot.
"Let's get out of here," Keyan said as he offered a hand to Lynia, who had hit the ground as soon as the shooting had started. With four dead Stormtroopers and one stunned lying on the grounds of the alleyway, the two rebels retreated to their safehouse.
"We have their signal," Han Solo reported from behind a small computer sitting on his bed. He pressed a few keys on the device, locating the place where the pirate broadcast was originating from.
"Where?" Leia said, entering his motel room from the door that joined the two rooms. She crossed the small distance, barely missing the last half-meter of Chewbacca's feet as they hung from the Wookiee's bed.
Han pulled up the map on the screen, showing it to Princess Leia. "What's the Alliance code?" he asked. "Five kilometers northeast of the location?"
"It's more north than northeast," Leia replied, studying the map. "They should be right about here," she said as she pointed to a small business on the map.
"I'll go," Han volunteered. "We don't know if it's a trap or not."
This is the place, Chewbacca growled an hour later as he pulled up the rented landspeeder at the small warehouse that—according to Leia—housed the survivors of the Independence.
Han nodded in the backseat, patting his right leg to make sure that his trusty blaster pistol was still there. He looked around the area, using the skills that he had acquired during his career as a smuggler to help him judge the situation. "Let's go, Chewie," he finally said, prompting his friend to kill the engines on the vessel.
Both rebels had their weapons in their hands as they stepped towards the building. Dusk had just settled in, casting long shadows upon the roadside, and completely obscuring portions of the area. Good place for a hideout, Han commented as he scanned the area. Or for an ambush.
"Hold it!" a voice called out from a shadow. "Identify yourselves!"
"Han Solo and Chewbacca," he replied, holding his gun above his head.
The person questioning them paused for a moment, a long enough period of time to cause Han Solo to get nervous. A brief thought that this was nothing more than an elaborate ambush entered his mind, causing him and Chewbacca to mentally prepare for a quick exit. The wait continued before finally ending as the familiar face of Keyan Farlander walking out from the shadows.
"Glad to see you're here, Captain Solo," the rebel pilot/Jedi replied. "Actually, it's good to see anyone here," he corrected himself a second later.
"How many of you are left?" Han asked, holstering his blaster pistol while Chewbacca shouldered his bowcaster.
"About 50," Keyan reported. A number that low lowered Han's spirits. He had expected to hear a number of several hundred survivors, but fifty? That would mean that over 4,000 rebels hadn't survived… "Do we have a safe evacuation plan?"
"Yeah, run right through the Imperial Star Destroyer that's blockading this planet," Han replied. "Other than that, not much."
"One of the spy leaders here says that we need to watch out for the Captain of that Star Destroyer," Keyan said. "They say that he's a tactical genius."
"He can't be that bad," Han said, shrugging off the warning. "I've escaped lots of 'military geniuses' in my career."
"Shields are down to 45!" Leia exclaimed as the green turbolaser fire rained down towards the ship that carried many rebels.
" 'Can't be that bad!?'" Keyan questioned Han's earlier comment as he watched the older pilot try to get out of the system. Luckily, the Falcon had been able to use the planet as a shield for the first few minutes as it raced to get out of the gravity well.
"Well we're not dead yet," Han replied. "Chewie, evasive action!" he shouted, trying to get out of the gravity well.
We have about a minute, Chewbacca growled as he pawed at the controls, spinning the Corellian-made craft to evade the green fire racing towards it.
"Whoever this guy is, he's good," Leia conceded from one of the other chairs in the room, the Alliance leader safely secured by her crash webbing. "Let's hope we don't meet up with him again."
"I don't think we're that lucky," Keyan replied.
"Hang on everyone," Han said as he was finally allowed to pull the lever in front of him, rocketing the Falcon into the relative safety of hyperspace.